I’m probably like a 2 or 3 on the second scale. :o I’m pretty gross. The other day at work I dropped an Oreo that I had been licking on the floor, icing side down, and some hair stuck in it. I wiped off the hair and continued licking. And my apartment is DISGUSTING. I need to be on one of those shows… with my face hidden of course… where they clean apartments which are gross. (Seriously though, just so you don’t think I’m completely worthless, I can be clean, but there’s nowhere to put anything in here. I’ve lived elsewhere and been able to keep the place clean just fine. But this place is too small for two people especially when the other won’t make room for me. Anyway…)
I do always wash my hands when I use the washroom though, I brush my teeth and keep my toothbrush clean, and if I come into contact with pee or poo (even just picking up dog poo through a plastic bag) I wash my hands thoroughly and at length. I always smell good. No one knows I’m disgusting.
I’m full-blown obsessive-compulsive about cleanliness, so I’m probably a 10. After I handle garbage or have a bowel movement or somesuch (and I always step into the shower to wash with soap and water after a bowel movement), I was my hands and forearms with soap thoroughly, then douse them with 99% isopropanol, then thoroughly brush my fingernails with an isopropanol-soaked fingernail brush. This is even though I clip my fingernails every two or three days, so short that it often hurts when I handle anything for a few hours after I clip them. I often guzzle Pepto Bismol to make sure that I won’t have to use a public toilet. If I absolutely have to, I wipe down the seat and use it, but I will be full of anxiety and careful about what I touch (such as my face or cell phone) until I can go home and do the aforementioned “cleansing ritual”. I don’t even touch my own doorknob, faucet handles, or light switches; I use my elbow. I hate any physical contact with strangers, even if it’s just clothing against clothing. If a homeless person or other particularly dirty person brushes up against me, I’ll go into what I affectionately call an “OCD freakout”: I go straight home, douse the touched clothing in isopropanol, throw it in the laundry, shower off, and scrub with isopropanol. I go through about a litre of isopropanol a week, plus about a half-litre bottle per (rare) “OCD freakout”.
So, yeah, I’m beyond germophobic. It really sucks. Yes, I am undergoing professional treatment for it.
Professionally I go by whatever code is necessary.
For my own matters I don’t really care about germs one way or the other. If my wife has thrown away something I want or like I will root it out of the trash and eat it. I have no concern over the cleanliness or age of my toothbrush. I prefer a good strong bristle so that it will last a long time and I can use it for other things.
I don’t think I have ever wiped a toilet seat before using one. Unless of course there is something obvious on it.
I do wash my hands before cooking a meal and several times during and usually after.
I don’t leave food out that much but when I do I will eat it no matter how long it has been out. We do the dishes daily but my wife has a habit of putting the dirty dishes in the sink with some food still on it and then sometimes ruining a bit of water on them, I still don’t know if this is intentional or she is using the water for something else. Or puts some trash or scraps on the plate. I hate this because I often think I may want to eat that later tonight. If it is not entirely soggy I may still eat it. She may be doing it to try and stop me.
I drink up to 8 cups of coffee a day and sometimes have several partial cups by my computer. If after a couple days goes by and I am thirsty I will drink them. Three is my cutoff usually.
I do change my socks everyday but not necessarily every other article of clothing.
I will eat or drink after pretty much anyone except kids under the age of 6.
I look clean though. I keep my head and body hair super short and wash my face. Shower occasionally in the winter, a little more often in the summer.
If I found a penny in a pile of dog shit I would dig it out.
I always say everything I have ever touched has washed off so far.
I very rarely get sick. If I do it is usually minor.
OP here – just wanted to say I am tremendously relieved to find out I’m not some kind of uberdisgusting freak because I sit on public toilets. And, in fact, since I usually give 'em a quick wipe with a bit of TP, it sounds like I’m more meticulous than some.
Please do not do this. Toothbrushes can contain blood-borne pathogens and create greater risk than just kissing someone. This is actually the greatest risk factor I face with my husband–making sure people* don’t accidently borrow his toothbrush, nail clippers, or razor.
I’m less than 1 on the original scale.
Someone spilled my jellybean bowl at work and we just picked them up and put them in a separate bowl marked “floor candy”. It was gone quickly, so apparently I work with a bunch of other non-germophobes.
*Only my grandson actually gets confused about toothbrushes, but the other things are easy for people to mistake.
On the revised scale, I’m about a 6. If a public restroom looks like it’s been kept up, I wouldn’t even think about wiping the seat. If it’s all-around gross, I just don’t use that facility. But I’m one of those who always washes up afterwards and uses a paper towel to open the door, etc.
I wouldn’t go so far as sharing a toothbrush, but everyday human contact doesn’t send me straight to the disinfectant. I wash my hands while preparing food and before eating, and feel like that’s good enough.
And having just read the linked thread, I am going to revise my habit of putting the bread in the cart seat.
I’m probably about an 8. I use the paper toilet seat covers when they’re available, but don’t freak out if they’re not. Food that falls on the floor goes in the garbage. Hand sanitizer gets used pretty constantly throughout the day.
I currently live in a dorm which provides for a few quirks that, oddly, don’t bother me in a more traditionally-residential setting. I keep my toothbrush in a cup on the ledge above the sinks, but I keep the top half of a toothbrush case over the bristles. Most people just leave their shower caddies on the floor right outside the shower; I can’t stand the idea that other people may drip on it there. I use shower gel with an anti-microbial agent in it. Not only do I need to wear sandals in the shower, but I can’t bring myself to walk into the bathroom without shoes on.
I know it’s completely illogical - if I’m going to get sick it’s probably going to be from eating in the cafeteria, not because of bacteria on my toothbrush - but I can’t help it. I’m also one of those people who cringes whenever I see a small child in public with a runny nose or whatever, because…ick, kid germs.
I’m maybe a 2 or 3. I wash my hands after using the bathroom, scooping the cat litter, and cleaning up dog poop. I wash them before cooking and during if Im dealing with raw chicken or turkey- I also clean my sink with Soft Scrub after having raw meat in it.
Other than that, I don't think about germs much. I work in a courthouse and regularly go to county jails and prisons, and I don't worry about shaking hands with the inmates, or letting them use my pen to sign something.
I'll happily pet the dog or cats while I'm eating, and I let the dog lick the plates before I put them in the dishwasher. If my mother-in-law knew that, she'd never eat here again (hmmmm...).
I remember reading somewhere that money is one of the most germ-rdden things that we handle every day. How many times have you gone to a fast-food place, paid for your meal and eaten without washing your hands in between?
I don’t care about germs at all - I hardly ever wash my hands with the intent of sanitizing them. I get sick maybe once every 18 months or so.
I, am, however, a bit of a chemophobe. I figure that the human body has an innate defense mechanism against germs - millions of years of evolution have guaranteed that. However, we have no defense against the possible harmful effects of man-made chemicals, and very little knowledge of how many such chemicals have harmful effects.
So, whenever my hands get dirty with something man-made, like lead solder, motor oil, furniture polish, ammonia, Ajax, or whatever, I am rather uncomfortable until I can wash them off.
I think people pay far too much attention to germs, and far too little to hazardous chemicals. I have met a few germophobic smokers, which makes no sense to me.
Oh, and on preview:
There’s a good example - to me, a sink just cleaned with Soft Scrub is far worse than a sink that had just had raw meat in it. I would be sitting there rinsing and scrubbing (with pure water) for at least five minutes before I could use the sink for food again.
I’m concerned about chemicals as well. I’m just curious about the sink thing. Why would you have to rinse and scrub a sink for five minutes? If you have a stainless steel sink, it doesn’t absorb any chemicals, does it? You mean to get rid of all traces of what you used to clean with? I pretty much agree with that, my mother is the queen of bleach and it drives me nuts when I go to her house. But now I’m going to be worried about my sink.
Well, I never said it was rational. But yeah, I would be worried that I left a little Soft Scrub somewhere on the sink, and then accidentally got some of it on food.
Stainless steel isn’t porous, but (especially if you have softened water) it can take a while to rinse everything off of it.
Speaking of smoking, several years ago the CDC investigated an outbreak of Salmonella muenchen in Ohio. They couldn’t figure out where it came from and after ruling out food they found out it was in marijuana. The analyzed the pot and it contained salmonella due to animal feces. It was passed on and I think there were a few deaths in young children. I don’t think the actual smoking had anything to do with it but they had the samonella on their hands and passed it to the kids that way.
I’m probably a minus 1 (as another respondent mentioned, the OP’s low end of the scale isn’t low enough).
Being paraplegic I use a wheelchair, so I’m sure my wheels pick up various nasties from the ground. I do almost invariably use gloves outside (e.g. bicycling gloves in the summer, something heavier in the winter) but that is to protect my hands from scrapes and other physical injury; I suspect a microbiologist might find my gloves “interesting” after heavy use. I’m responsible enough to take reasonable care about sanitation if I am preparing or serving food for someone else, and make a passing effort to wash my hands in the washroom (again, I’m wheeling around all the time and I assume the floor also has “interesting” creepy crawlies that my tires will pick up, so major efforts at cleanliness seem somewhat pointless), but other than that I let my immune system do its job.
I’m a great believer that extreme cleanliness is very UNnatural.
I’d be a one on the original scale. I wash my hands frequently, though that started in force when my son was born premie and in the hospital for two months. I only wipe the public toilets to get the pee off, not really for cleanliness perse, just dry, thankyouverymuch. The house is clean when it comes to things like eating food off a plate, but the floors could be mopped more frequently, I suppose. I don’t worry about too much else.
